← Becker Business
Becker Business
How AI and Branding Are Reshaping Healthcare Marketing with Kathy Gaughran of Healthcare Success Strategies 10-17-25
00:13:41
In this episode recorded live at the McGuireWoods Healthcare Growth & Operations conference, Kathy Gaughran, Senior Marketing Strategist at Healthcare Success Strategies, discusses how AI is transforming digital marketing, recruitment,
Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with a very special edition of the Becker Business podcast, the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're broadcasting today from the McGuire Woods Healthcare Growth and Operations Conference. I'm thrilled to be joined right now by Kathy Goren. Kathy is one of the leaders of Healthcare Success. They've just done a tremendous job of building a strategic agency that helps to amplify and help tell the story of businesses in health care and what they do. They largely work with private equity sponsored companies and they're just done a tremendous job. Kathy, can you take a moment, introduce yourself?
- [00:36]
B
Yeah. Hi, Scott. It's great to see you. My name is Kathy Goren. I've been a senior strategist with Healthcare success for about 15 years. I was with Stuart, our CEO at a previous healthcare ad agency, prior to joining Healthcare success for about 20 years. So he and I have been in the industry for a couple of decades.
- [00:55]
A
Fantastic. And I've watched you grow and watch Stuart grow and what you've done grow, and you've just done a tremendous job. Can you talk a little bit about the areas that you're most focused in? Where do you most closely work with clients of the firm?
- [01:11]
B
Yeah, well, we saw a big influx, actually, following Covid of the behavioral health space. We saw a lot of autism, eating disorders, residential treatment centers, mental health facilities. And we're finding that the demand far. The demand for clinicians and the demand for care far outpasses our supply. So one of the big problems for these centers is just recruitment, you know, so we come at them from a variety of different strategies.
- [01:41]
A
Right. And that is so true that you've got the situation where if you're a growing business in behavioral health, there's, there's. Obviously we're overloaded with need in our country. If you go to emergency departments, a third of the people in emergency departments are people with behavioral health issues and challenges. Obviously, there's been an explosion of diagnosis. There's also been an explosion of just need, particularly as the world moves so quickly. And there's been so much change. The way in which we structure our lives has changed so much. And it's led to just an explosion of behavioral health challenges. Talk a little bit about when you work with clients. It's just not on growth. It's also on strategy. It's also on recruitment. It's also on trying to figure out how they pull the different levers that can help them be successful.
- [02:24]
B
Right. And marketing is an important lever. It's not just a cost center, it's a lever. And so when we look and evaluate any new business, whether it's behavioral health or endovascular or urgent care, which is another two areas that we work extensively in, we look at the three channels, recruitment for clinicians to cover the demand. We also look at building of B2B relationships for referrals and then we also have B2C for the patient population. So when we work with these brands that cover a lot of territories and one of the challenges with private equity and the platforms is they end up in competitive markets.
- [03:03]
A
So talk for a second in terms of Cathy, where you spend most of your time, We've talked about recruitment. B2B. B2C. Where do you end up spending most of your time? And you mentioned for a moment many of the private equity sponsored companies become sort of a patchwork of many different companies and how important is it for them to develop sort of a single brand, a clarity of brand?
- [03:25]
B
It's critical. So we often look at house of brands or branded house. And as search is changing we're finding that a centralized brand is more effective. In most cases you want to look at marketing with a centralized strategy, but executed locally. One of the primary issues about multi location marketing is making sure that you're appearing to that demographic as a local option for them. So it doesn't feel like it's just an offshoot of a larger brand, but actually a healthcare entity that's servicing that particular market. So it needs to feel local to the consumers that are there. And that's part of the strategy.
- [04:03]
A
And talk about that for a moment because there's this fine line between standardization that you're like a Starbucks and every place you go, you know, when you go to Starbucks, it's always the same experience, something like that versus particularly in mental health and in healthcare, having clarity that you're a great brand but that you've actually got local providers taking care of local people and trying to hit that right balance. How do you think about some of those things?
- [04:25]
B
Well, it's critical for that identity. So some of the things we look at are landing pages, location pages, things that are specifically local to them, your Google business profiles. And then obviously AI has completely changed the game. So it's critical that you're optimized for your business profiles, that you're doing everything you can to get into search. Because we're seeing zero click search now. People are, are passing, they're not getting past the AI overview. So we're finding that 60%, it's been about a 60% drop in website traffic across the country 30 to 60 depending on the vertical. But and one of the issues, we just created this really nice tutorial that talks about how AI is impacting search. And one of the things that healthcare is going to always fall under is your money or your life which is just sort of a Google category. And they, they look at healthcare differently because of what they're educating us on. It is our money or our life in healthcare. So it's critical that the information is accurate and that it's all following Google's guidelines.
- [05:28]
A
That's fascinating. It's so fascinating. You mentioned this. One of the stories reported on earlier today was Rolling Stone magazine which also and some other magazines just announced that they're suing Google for exactly. What you talked about is that people aren't actually getting Google through their summaries does the overview and then people don't actually get to the Rolling Stone pages to Rolling Stone and they say they're cannibalizing their traffic. It's depressing traffic that people aren't getting to their actual. And if you're a media company you need that traffic and if you're any kind of business, you need people to get through to your business and not just get AI'd out where you're not part of whatever end up being the AI solution. That's a fascinating change in marketing and how you work through it completely. Particularly for all these people that have done pay per click marketing or trying to be in front of eyeballs and so forth and so on. Now you get sort of through this funnel where it stops. It's almost like with email delivery. At one point all the emails went through. Now you get a categoricalized by Apple in the 41 categories and if you're in the wrong category, nobody ever sees your email. It's really a fascinating change in marketing and how you do it. That is fascinating.
- [06:34]
B
It is.
- [06:35]
A
Talking about Kathy, you guys have had tremendous success. I love the energy of yourself and Stuart. It's just really, and it's so important in what you do do talk for a second about what are you most excited about as we head into the end of 2025, the start of 2026, where are you most focused? I mean I know you're solving big problems and where are you most focused and excited?
- [06:52]
B
Well, we're, we're definitely, we've got a big initiative within our organization on AI and the different application because AI is impacting everything from the front end on the phones with AI bots that can answer phones, we're having a Meeting on that this week with a client in Houston all the way through to how they practice medicine. So it's going to completely change not just the healthcare experience, but also what we're able to do, what they're able to do on the back end. I was at your conference a couple of months ago and heard a surgeon talking about embryologists and AI and that they're able to produce more embryos. So if you just look at all the swing that it goes up to in healthcare and actual application of healthcare services from just answering the phone. Yeah. So it's going to impact a lot of areas. And that's why when you say AI, it's. It's not AI as a category, it's AI as a landscape, right?
- [07:44]
A
No, 100%. There's so many different pieces of it, so many places. And what's happening is there's like so many different things. As things pick up steam, we all get more used to them. It's like when the iPhone, the smartphones, came out. Took a while for all of us to see how we're going to use it for so many different things. And we'd start to use apps, start to use these things with AI. So many of our first experiences were first through just a regular search, and then it was through the jet, GPTs or the Grox, the world, or whatever it is that people work on. You start saying, oh, my God, this is getting me answered so much quicker, so I'm going to use it. Then people start to understand how that's going to translate to their. To their business. Kathy, you've had this remarkable leadership career. Take a moment on what advice you would give to other emerging leaders.
- [08:26]
B
I think it is just staying ahead of the curve, making sure that you are. Because another thing on AI, just lapping back to that is it also impacts analytics and how we evaluate data. So it's critical that you're staying ahead of the curve as far as new technologies, new platforms. We've assembled a whole tech stack and it took our team quite a while to vet the companies and look at the different partners that we can, that we can work with and provide services jointly. Because there's just so many different solutions and AI has touched so many different categories. And it's important to also figure out how to monetize AI in your business so you're not getting caught up in the sexiness of the technology and not understanding the direct application.
- [09:11]
A
And I think what you said there, so many pieces that are so important is that you have to pick which solutions you're going to work with because you can't work with all of them. You end up just all over the place. And, and so let me go back to a very human question. I've watched you and Stuart maintain tremendous energy for what you do for a very long time. I had the great pleasure of being on Stuart and your podcast not that long ago, maybe six months ago. And it's really a great, great experience getting a chance to visit. But I've been so impressed with Stuart and you over the course of the last 15 years. How do you maintain the daily motivation, the energy? How do you keep it interesting to keep on doing what you do?
- [09:49]
B
I love what I do, honestly. I was talking with another new client in Utah about that, that we're fortunate. It's so interesting and so rewarding. I tend to love to work in the mental health space, but I like what I do across the board. That the challenge of really identifying the problems and providing solutions to unstick issues and get greater visibility because private equity runs into the challenge of trying to, to push short term growth initiatives while balancing and building long term brand sustainability and scalability. So it's like you've got all these different challenges happening at the same time and I find that invigorating and challenging. Yeah, it's been continuously challenging. Every situation is unique and different.
- [10:33]
A
It really is because you really have to tie in. You've got some ideas, here's how we do things, here's what we do. But every situation is a little bit different. Make sure you relate to those people and help those people and what business they're doing and where they're going. They've all got pressure on them as well. I'm going to ask you one last question. I promise you the last question was the one last question, but I got one more. So giving advice to a young person coming out of school, you get these two different types of advice. Today you get one broad school thought that says pursue your passion and you'll figure out money. Others that come from sort of more of the old school, particularly myself, would be, well, you better have a job and then you can figure out your passion. Where is the mindset in that? How do you sort of advise somebody younger about finding an intersection, something they love to do is you're fortunate, you love what you do and you also make a living. But somebody coming out of school, pursue your passion or make a living and I guess it depends what your passion is.
- [11:26]
B
I think pursue your passion. I think things have changed and I was starting to mention my daughter, she just graduated with her degree in psychology. And watching her apply for jobs, it was like she was walking down the yellow brick road. You know, there were all these opportunities, and she ended up taking a job as an equine therapist, which we didn't even realize existed. Right. So there are a lot of opportunities for kids now, so they need to find what they love and then figure out a way to make that their path.
- [11:54]
A
Yes, that's fantastic too, because she's also in a great field with so much need today. And you have all these different options where if you're in other fields, it feels like there's not so many different options. And then trying to find your, your, your passion and make a living is more chance. I think that's fascinating. Fascinating, but, but what a fantastic thing. And what is she doing?
- [12:13]
B
Equine therapy in Salinas, California.
- [12:16]
A
Oh, beautiful.
- [12:17]
B
Isn't that awesome?
- [12:17]
A
Beautiful.
- [12:19]
B
Yeah. She's just living the dream. So it's great.
- [12:21]
A
And equine therapy, you know, when I hear it first, I think therapy for horses, but it's really using horses and therapy with people as a way to work with people utilizing horses. What a fascinating field.
- [12:33]
B
Oh, it's. It's incredible. So she, and she was telling me some of her diagnosis and application of the horses, and it's. It just makes so much sense, you know, people who have issues with control or fear of the unknown. And she knows the right horses to put with the right people. And I've seen patients over my lifetime that have only been able to see success and benefit from equine therapy. And there's not that many centers. So fortunately, the center she works at is all medical amazing services, the underprivileged in the state of California, which equine therapy tends to be expensive. So it's that she's able to offer it to people who can't afford it.
- [13:10]
A
And I want you to do me one favor. Can I ask you to me one favor?
- [13:13]
B
Sure.
- [13:13]
A
So my one favor is I want your daughter to save me a very slow horse for when I come out to Salinas, California for equine therapy. That is what I want is a really slow, slow horse.
- [13:26]
B
Just the horse. Yeah.
- [13:27]
A
Good.
- [13:27]
B
She does.
- [13:28]
A
That's what we need. Kathy, what a great pleasure to visit with you today. I'm amazed at what you folks have done at healthcare success. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [13:36]
B
I appreciate it. Thanks, Scott.